state, drew a bill for establishing courts of law and prescribing their powers and methods, made earnest efforts to establish a system of public education, and proposed many measures which were passed at a later period. In 1779 Jefferson succeeded Patrick Henry as state governor, and was re-elected in 1780, but declined re-election for a third term, and induced his friends to elect General Gates. As governor of the State, it fell to his lot to support the Virginia quota in the army of Washington, and send supplies to General Gates in his Southern campaign. On the last day of 1780 Arnold sailed up the Chesapeake and penetrated as far as Richmond almost unresisted, but the traitor held the city for only one day. In the following spring the British Colonel Tarleton dispersed the Legislature and nearly captured the governor. Jefferson declined a re-election, on the ground that a military man was then needed for the post. Shortly after his wife's death in 1782, Jefferson was chosen plenipotentiary to France; but before he was ready to sail the preliminaries of peace had been agreed to, and he returned to Monticello. In 1783 he was elected to Congress and took his seat at Annapolis. It was here that, as chairman of a committee on currency, he devised the decimal system now in use. In May, 1784, he was again chosen plenipotentiary to France to act with Franklin and Adams in arranging treaties with foreign powers, and afterwards received from Mr. Jay his commission appointing him sole minister plenipotentiary to the King of France for three years. When the French government instructed its minister at Philadelphia to forward to Paris full information concerning the States of the American Confederacy, the secretary of the French legation forwarded to Jefferson a series of questions to answer on this subject. From this resulted his "Notes on Virginia," published in 1784. During his five years' residence in France, although his official duties were arduous, he found time for the study of science; became acquainted with Buffon, and was the means of inducing him to reconstruct his theory on American animals. He traveled over Europe and supplied American colleges and institutions with books, accounts of new discoveries and inventions, seeds, roots and nuts for trial in American soil. In 1789 Jefferson, receiving six months' absence, returned to find that he had been selected by President Washington for the office of Secretary of State. In March, 1790, he entered the Cabinet with Hamilton, Knox and Edmund Randolph as colleagues. Hamilton and Jefferson represented the two extremes of different parties, and there existed between them much personal and political animosity which tended to increase after Washington's second election. Jefferson wrote to Mazzei, an Italian who had visited America to examine the workings of the new Republic, a letter lamenting the decay of the spirit of liberty, and laying much blame on the government. When this letter was published in 1794, Jefferson was obliged to resign. In 1796 he was named by the Anti-Federal party as a candidate for the presidency, and fell only a few votes behind John Adams. He thus, according to the constitutional regulation then existing, became vice-president. This office pleased him, as he was not required to advise Mr. Adams on political matters. For the regulation of debates in Congress he now prepared his "Manual of Parliamentary Practice." In 1800 Jefferson, being the leader of what was called the Republican party, was again a candidate for the presidency. Having received seventy-three votes, the precise number recorded for Aaron Burr, the election was thrown into the House of Representatives, and the result, after an animated struggle, was that Jefferson became president and Burr vicepresident. Jefferson, on coming to the presidency, endeavored to assuage the violence of party spirit, and his inaugural address was composed with that view. He removed from office some who had been hostile to him, yet declared that difference of politics was not a reason for removing from office any one who had proved himself competent. Among his first acts were, pardoning all who had been imprisoned under the Sedition law, and sending friendly letters to the chief victims of the Alien law. His Cabinet consisted of Madison, Gallatin, Dearborn, Smith and Gran ger, all men of liberal education. Jefferson, in his desire to introduce simplicity into the White House, abolished the formalities established by Washington, the weekly levees, the system of precedence, and everything that savored of European courts. He also substituted the written message to Congress instead of the speech formerly delivered. Among the acts of Jefferson's administration, which includes a good part of the history of the United States for eight years, the most important was his purchase from Napoleon, at an opportune moment, of the whole of the Territory of Louisiana for $15,000,000. This act was contrary to his theory of the national government, but its advantages were such as to override all scruples. The treasonable projects of Aaron Burr in the Southwest, though frustrated without difficulty, gave Jefferson much anxiety. In his desire for peace he reduced the navy to six vessels; yet glory was conferred on his administration by a successful war on the Barbary pirates. But the embargo of 1807, which was also part of his peace policy, was fraught with disaster to the commerce of the country. On March 4, 1809, after a public career of nearly forty-four years, Jefferson retired to private life. The last seventeen years of his life he spent at Monticello among his children and grandchildren, endeavoring to establish a system of complete education in his native State. His proposed system of common schools in Virginia was not put in practice; but the University which was to crown that system was fairly begun. Towards the end of his life he became greatly embarrassed in circumstances, and sold his library to Congress. Having been induced to endorse very largely for a friend who became bankrupt, he came very near losing Monticello; but this calamity was averted by friends in New York and Philadelphia. Jefferson died on the 4th of July, 1826, a few hours before John Adams, half a century after signing the Declaration of Independence which he had composed. He was buried in his own graveyard beneath a stone on which was engraved the inscription prepared by his own hand: "Here was buried Thomas Jefferson, Author of the Declaration of American Independence, of the Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom, and Father of the University of Virginia." JEFFERSON'S TEN RULES. 1. Never put off till to-morrow what you can do to-day. 2. Never trouble another for what you can do yourself. 3. Never spend your money before you have it. 4. Never buy what you do not want because it is cheap; it will be dear to you. 5. Pride costs us more than hunger, thirst and cold. 6. We never repent of having eaten too little. 7. Nothing is troublesome that we do willingly. 8. How much pain have cost us the evils which never happened! 9. Take things always by the smooth handle. 10. When angry, count ten before you speak; when very angry, a hundred. THE FOUNDATION OF AMERICAN LIBERTY. (Extract from the Inaugural Address of Thomas Jefferson, President of the United States, March 4, 1801.) During the contest of opinion through which we have passed, the animation of discussions and of exertions has some. times worn an aspect which might impose on strangers, unused to think freely, and to speak and to write what they think; but, this being now decided by the voice of the nation, announced according to the rules of the Constitution, all will, of course, arrange themselves under the will of the law, and unite in common efforts for the common good. All, too, will bear in mind this sacred principle, that, though the will of the majority is in all cases to prevail, that will, to be rightful, must be reasonable; that the minority possesses their equal rights, which equal laws must protect, and to violate which would be oppression. Let us, then, fellow-citizens, unite with one heart and one mind; let us restore to social intercourse that harmony and affection without which liberty and even life itself are but dreary things. And let us reflect, that, having banished from our land that religious intolerance under which mankind so long bled and suffered, we have yet gained little, if we countenance a political intolerance as despotic, as wicked, and capable of as bitter and bloody persecutions. During the throes and convulsions of the ancient world; during the agonizing spasms of infuriated man, seeking, through blood and slaughter, his long-lost liberty, it was not wonderful that the agitation of the billows should reach even this distant and peaceful shore; that this should be more felt and feared by some, and less by others, and should divide opinions as to measures of safety: but every difference of opinion is not a difference of principle. We have called by different names brethren of the same principle. We are all Republicans: we are all Federalists. If there be any among us who would wish to dissolve this Union, or to change its republican form, let them stand, undisturbed, as monuments of the safety with which error of opinion may be tolerated, where reason is left free to combat it. . . About to enter, fellow-citizens, on the exercise of duties. which comprehend everything dear and valuable to you, it is proper you should understand what I deem the essential principles of our Government, and, consequently, those which ought to shape its administration. I will compress them within the narrowest compass they will bear — stating the general principle, but not all its limitations. Equal and exact justice to all men, of whatever state or persuasion, religious or political; peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations, entangling alliances with none; the support of the State governments in all their rights, as the most competent administrations for our domestic concerns, and the surest bulwarks against anti-republican tendencies; the preservation of the General Government in its whole constitutional vigor, as the sheet-anchor of our peace at home and safety abroad; a jealous care of the right of election by the people; a mild and safe corrective of abuses which are lopped by the sword of revolution, where peaceable remedies are unprovided; absolute acquiescence in the decisions of the majority, the vital principle of republics, from which is no appeal but to force, the vital principle and immediate parent of despotism; a well-disciplined militia, our best reliance in peace, and for the first moments of war, till regulars may relieve them; the supremacy of the civil over the military |